WANDeRiNG MiND!

I wanted to conclude my trilogy before posting anything else, but unfortunately time and everything around is too discouraging to even attempt it. Everyone and everything around me seems to be targeting me for their torture games. Thus my mind is all screwed up, and pretty bad too. Every day is a nightmare for me now, and so is every night. No sleep, no smile, no peace of mind. The sunlight shines through the clouds for a minute and then it’s gloomy again. Talking nonsense here too, I think. Large part of all that’s happening is o’course due to my own insanity. Anyways, today I thought I’ll just put all the irritations in my mind, right here. So here it is. Am just venting. So don’t mind. No offense whatsoever.

Am sure many would have come across a mail, with the content given below, several times..

Oprah’s interview and Tommy Hilfiger Good for Oprah!!!!
I’m sure many of you watched the recent taping of The Oprah Winfrey show where her guest was Tommy Hilfiger. On the show, she asked him if the statements about race he was accused of saying were true.

Statements like”… if I’d known African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews and Asians would buy my clothes, I would not have made them so nice. I wish these people would NOT buy my clothes, as they are made for upper class white people.”

His answer to Oprah was a simple, “YES”. Where after she immediately asked him to leave her show.

My suggestion? Don’t buy your next shirt or Perfume from Tommy Hilfiger. Let’s give him what he asked for. Let’s not buy his clothes.

Let’s put him in a financial state where he himself will not be able to afford the ridiculous prices he puts on his clothes.

BOYCOTT PLEASE, & SEND THIS MESSAGE TO ANYONE YOU KNOW !!!!!

I got if first some 4 years ago.. and before that I heard about it from somebody else too.. and I believed it. But as it turns out, it’s always been just a hoax.

Many of us just read these mails and believe it and just blindly forward it. Well, most of them don’t harm anybody, but some could harm somebody pretty bad too.. I believe it’s unfair on our part to be a part of such “chain mailers”.. I think we all should take a minute “googling” the genuineness of such mails before we forward to the entire addressbook.

My request: please, please, PLEASE… avoid forwarding those horribly stupid and dumb mails which claim to earn you “millions from Microsoft and AOL” and the likes, by just forwarding them. Even the ones that show heart melting images of little girls, claiming that the girl has some terrible virus that’s killing her and needs treatment badly and for the fund, Yahoo or whoever has agreed to pay for each mail forwarded etc etc… I mean, how can we be so ignorant of the truth that no company is stupid enough to pay thousands and millions, to the millions who believe it and forward the mails????? I mean, hello! these companies are into making softwares. Not printing dollars.

The worst of them all is the ones that carry “God’s messages”! Man, I hate that so much. People actually believe that the message originated from some famous temple and unless they forward it to 10 others, they will have ill-luck. Since when did “God” start spamming???? What kind of a loser actually started that sick mail?

When I put this for discussion in a group from which I received the mail last, someone told me that the same girl, the one who was to receive the cash generated by the rest of the world forwarding the mail, is still fighting against bone cancer. She’s been sick from from 2003 and now she is 6 years old He also said when received the mail a month ago, the words were same as of the first one he had received.

Which girl? And why? Because nobody forwarded the mail? Because Yahoo or Microsoft or whoever agreed to pay, didn’t pay? Well, maybe they should have gone for an easier and better option… like just forwarding the Microsoft and AOL mail which claimed to have “turned thousands of people into millionaires just overnight” (as per the mail), instead of just waiting. How long was that mail to be in circulation before the company pays up anyway?

If that “girl having cancer” is really a true story, then I really admire the will power and strength she and her relatives have shown, which kept her alive for so long. But I also feel disgusted by the person who used her terrible condition as a “tool” to start a chain mail which was meant to just fool the people and NEVER to help the victim. Am NOT saying there is no girl like that. What am saying is, there is no “offer” from any corporates like the one that’s told in these mails. It’s just some sick mind’s cruel joke. Just another chain mail.

But what exactly is the “intention” of the chain mails? The person sends a mail, and he/she gets it back after many years. Is that the only “high” the creator of the mails get? I really can’t see anything else. And like that same person in the group pointed out, nobody ever came with a mail after receiving the “charity fund”! Considering the “forward and help me save my daughter” mail is true, don’t you think it’s selfish on the part of the “charity fund receivers” to not send a “thank you all for saving my daughter’s life” mail at least, to all those people who forwarded their previous mail and helped them get the “charity fund”? Have u ever seen a mail like that? There have been countless mails asking for the fund, and not a single one succeeded?? What are the odds?????

There have been chain mails of different types. The “easy money maker” mails were an instant hit, thanks to the human nature. They even tried “Nokia is giving away free mobiles to make their brand popular” stuff, when mobiles were catching up in the market. Then they tried with “virus alerts” when a few deadly ones were actually making the news and people were scared of getting their computers infected. The “save my daughter” kind of mails started playing with the human emotions. And then “Gods” started traveling the web just like they used to travel in a postman’s bag, before the Internet happened. Remember those days when people used to get postcards with some “mantra” or spell written on it and asking the receiver to write 15 copies of it, write not photocopy, and send it to different people within the next 10 days? I had received one too, and for all I cared, that could have been a marketing gimmick of out postal department But hey, at least the postcard made many people write the “mantra” some 15 times. They wouldn’t have forgotten it after that, right? But how is hitting the forward button going to help at all?????? And why do people actually believe that just forwarding a mail can bring them luck? In my opinion health and wealth never comes to people who just sit back and HIT “Forward” in their mailbox. It goes to people who actually get up from their couch and take themselves forward.

The only outcome of these stupid chain mails will be that some day, when someone actually wants to pass on a genuine issue, like maybe the “missing child” mail or the “AB -ve blood for a patient in Appolo Hospital” one that’s been going around of late, the public will just ignore it thinking it’s another of the time wasters.

Remember the old story of the boy who screamed “Tiger, tiger”???????
Who’s to be blamed?

PS: I know people may have different opinions… This is just mine.

Hey all. Sorry, but I have been too busy with my job for a while and hence the posts got delayed. In between my blog on Blogger went down as the server where I had my files failed. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been trying to get them back. Didn’t happen.

Anyways, am back and this time, my blog is almost entirely mine Yup, this is my own domain. Last 2 days I’ve been working on setting up my blog and the database and stuff. In the following days I’ll continue with my posts, starting with the 3rd and final part of my very own “trilogy”

Till then… take care, you guys. And do come back.

ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) is most commonly called the “sixth sense”. It is sensory information that an individual receives which comes beyond the ordinary five senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. It can provide the individual with information of the present, past, and future; as it seems to originate in a second, or alternate reality.

There are theories concerning individuals who possess ESP and how they acquired this ability. One theory holds that some people such as seers, prophets and diviners were bore with the gift, which was inherited by their relatives. Another theory hold that it is a primordial sense which has decreased in populations as their cultures advanced. Still another theory claims ESP is a supersense, which evolves in the nervous system.

That was just for your reading pleasure. Am in no way trying to claim my 15 minutes of fame by saying I have a sixth sense and I can see the future. No. But like I mentioned in my previous post, I believe that the ESP, or sixth sense, is a part of everyone whether they like it or not. It is a normal part of the human psyche and not abnormal or reserved for special or gifted persons. Psychical research does support the theory that everyone is born with ESP capability, though some may possess more than others. Most people have experienced at least one ESP experience in their lives. Maybe many of us just don’t give it a second thought, or just dismiss it saying, “I think I have had a deja vu of this!”

Think about it. Anyway, here I continue to share a few more of my past experiences, ‘coz they have always made me wonder.

From 1993, fast forward to 1997-98, when I was undergoing industrial training in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu, India). I used to stay with my friend in a room provided by the company we worked for, and our lives used to be real boring unless we go out and watch a movie or spend time with other friends during the weekends. Every weekend we made it a point to meet another friend of ours who used to stay with his dad in another part of the city, and then all 3 of us together watch a movie. If that guy’s dad went visiting the rest of the family back in their native land, we used to stay over for the weekend and all three of us used to have some fun.

One day, it so happened that we were totally bored and found ourselves with no options but to go stay at out friend’s place, even if his dad’s there. We took the bus and went all the way, and after getting down, we were walking to his place just talking. I suddenly felt something was weird and not right. I felt we won’t be able to stay over at this guy’s place and will have to go back to our room. I turned to my friend and told him so. He casually asked what could happen that we cannot be staying over there. And my reply was, “What if his mom and sisters have come from native?” My friend was cool and he told me not to worry ‘coz that situation was very unlikely. Why would all of them come here all of a sudden anyway?

So we walked and reached our friend’s house. We went up and knocked at the door. And what do we see? The door is opened by his mother!! I was so dumbfounded that I was speechless for a while. When I got back to my senses I realized that the whole family was present there having decided to enjoy the weekend together. Well, we just spent some time there with them and later went back to our room for the night..

There were two other incidents of “having a hunch”, where I was meant to take a decision. In one I lost while the other saved our lives maybe.

The first one was when I had to leave my sick dog – a bitch (in the proper sense of the word) alone at home and go somewhere for a day. My mom and sister were with my grandparents and my dad and I were to join them. But my little pet, which I loved so much, was sick and she wasn’t moving around much. I was worried about her and told my mom so when she called. But mom said it’s alright and there’s no need to worry as we would be back home the very next day, just a matter of few hours and she will be fine. I couldn’t be sure though and thought of taking her along with us instead of leaving her all alone with no care, but later decided not to, ‘coz I didn’t want her to suffer due to the travel. So I left her with a cozy little mattress and food and water, hoping she would be fine, and went to my granny’s place. But all the while I was really worried about something.

Next morning we left from there and on our way back just dropped in at my aunt’s place. A few minutes after we reached there, my aunt’s phone rang and the call was for my mom. I was suddenly gripped by this terrible fear something I didn’t know. My mom took the phone and as she spoke I saw her face change too. Yup, our little bitch was dead, left all alone when she needed us most. I knew it was gonna happen, but I ignored it. And I had never been as sad in my life as I was that day.

The other one was when I had to go book tickets for my cousins and myself when 4 of us planned to go to our native together from Bangalore. At the ticket counter, the guy gave me tickets on the driver’s side of the bus, somewhere in the rear half. That’s never a safe place to sit when you travel long distance, coz buses and trucks from the opposite direction will be just ripping past you. One mistake and you could be the victim of a freak accident. I lost a friend in one such. He died coz he was in the wrong seat, and a truck from the opposite side suddenly lost control and hit the bus, exactly where he was seated. Ever since, I haven’t really enjoyed traveling sitting on the driver’s side of the bus. But sometimes, I don’t bother much and just go with what’s available.

When the guy at the counter offered me those seats, I didn’t wanna ask him for a change and thought will settle for it, coz that was a festive season and getting tickets itself was a problem. But then something told me I should ask for seats on the other side. Even though I hesitated at first, I went ahead and asked him. He checked and finally I was able to get seats for all of us on the other side of the bus. It so happened that the bus we took met with an accident just about an hour before it reached the destination. Another bus coming from the opposite direction slammed into our bus right in the rear half of it, on the driver’s side of course. It was a bad hit and a major part of our bus was ripped off. Many were injured, including us, though we escaped with minor ones. But a mother and daughter lost their lives in the accident. I later realized that they had occupied the seats somewhere where the guy had originally offered us.

Our luck was somebody else’s bad luck.

[to be concluded in next...]

Everyone is aware of his or her five basic senses, seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting. What everyone is not so well aware of is their sixth sense, that sense of otherworldliness, a connection to something more and greater than their physical senses are able to perceive. This is the entrance to the world of the unseen encounter, the unheard communication, the unfelt touch of someone from the spiritual world trying to make a connection with someone in the physical body.

Everybody’s heard of the sixth sense and stories surrounding it. So many movies have been made with the theme like the boy who saw dead people as in M. Night Shyamalan’s movie The Sixth Sense, or the man who saw the tomorrow as in Iyyer, The Great, an old Malayalam movie. But have you ever had a hunch, an instinct or an intuition? Some experts claim that such hunches might actually foretell the future. Others aren’t so sure. Here’s a story I found on the net.

Alex was cleaning his double-action, six-shot revolver in preparation for a bunting trip later in the month. In this pistol, when the trigger is pulled the hammer is cocked, the cylinder revolves, and the hammer falls on the next chamber, all in one smooth motion. For safety’s sake, Alex normally kept five bullets in the revolver, with the hammer resting on the sixth, empty chamber.Before cleaning the gun, he later said, he removed the five bullets and set them aside. When finished cleaning, he began to put the bullets back in the cylinder. When he arrived at the fifth and final bullet, he suddenly got a distinct sense of dread. It had something to do with that bullet.

Alex was bothered about the odd feeling because nothing like it had ever happened to him before. He decided to trust his gut, so he put the bullet aside and positioned the pistol’s hammer as usual over the sixth chamber. The chamber next to it, which normally held the fifth bullet, was now also empty.

Two weeks later, Alex was at a hunting lodge with his fiancee and her parents. That evening, unexpectedly, a violent argument broke out between the parents. Alex tried to calm them down, but the father, in an insane rage, grabbed Alex’s gun, which had been in a drawer, and pointed it at his wife.

Alex tried to intervene by jumping between the gun and the woman, but he was too late — the trigger was already being pulled. For a horrifying split second, Alex know that he was about to get shot at point-blank range. But instead of a sudden, gruesome death, the pistol went “click.” The cylinder had revolved to an empty chamber — the very chamber that would have contained the fifth bullet if Alex had not set it aside two weeks earlier.

Had Alex actually predicted the future, or was this just an extraordinary coincidence? Does a sixth sense really exist? It’s been a hot topic with researchers for a long time.

Am not sure about it either, but I did have these strange hunches and intuitions in the past, and not just once, but quite a number of times that I remember at least. Let me share a few here.

Long back, when I was a kid, I remember telling my sister one day that she’s gonna fall down and hurt herself that day. She didn’t take it seriously, but it turned out that she did actually fall and hurt herself that same day. I don’t know what impact that really had on my sister back then but she thought that I did “predict” the future. But that wasn’t any sixth sense. It was just a coincidence. But later, years later, in October 1993 if I remember right, something happened which really shook me.

Back then I was in senior secondary school, and it was a crucial year for me. But more than the textbooks and classes, I was interested in music, movies and the stars. With my pocket money, I used to buy many magazines and books that otherwise my parents wouldn’t let me have ‘coz they were worried about me losing my grip on the studies. These magazines I used to keep them in my room, inside a shelf, hidden amongst the many books and papers. Then one day we all went on a 4-day trip from the school. We had all the fun and were back to our hometown by about dinnertime on the 4th day. As I said bye to my friends and walked home, I suddenly had this weird feeling inside. It was a kind of intuition, that my mother has taken my absence as a right time to clean up my room and shelf and that she had found out my little secret, the magazines hidden under the books. I was really scared that moment. It wasn’t a big deal actually. It wasn’t like they were some “forbidden” books. But I was still scared. I reached home and my parents were having dinner. I spoke to them for a few minutes and went to my room to freshen up. The first thing I noticed was, my room was indeed cleaned. I rushed to shelf and checked inside. Yup, my moms actually cleaned it up, and guess what; all those magazines and books that I had kept from them were missing!

Of course I had to answer a lot of questions to my mom after that but what really shook me was the fact that I actually “saw” it coming. I should have dismissed it as just a coincidence, but I couldn’t. I mean, I was coming back from 4 days of fun with friends and there was no reason why I should have suddenly been worrying about my mom finding out my secret which, to begin with, wasn’t as serious as having killed somebody and buried the body in my backyard.

I couldn’t dismiss it that easily. I sat and let my mind wander, as usual. I tried to remember if something similar had happened any time earlier in my life. The only incident I could remember, other than my sister hurting herself, was something that took place a few years earlier when celebrating a festival with all my cousins. That day we were all having a great time bursting crackers and enjoying fireworks. In between, one of my cousins was trying to light a flowerpot – that conical stuff which shoots up fire like a fountain. It wouldn’t light up even after repeated tries. So she left it. After sometime I saw her going to give it another try. I suddenly sensed danger there and told her not to do it. I told her it’s gonna explode instead of just shooting the fire up. She just gave me a blunt look, which ideally would have translated to “Such a coward”. I let her go. She went ahead with her intentions, sat down and tried to get it work. And then – the flowerpot exploded. It wasn’t a big one, and so it sounded just like a small cracker. My cousin sat there, stunned. Everybody ran to her and asked her if she was hurt. She said no, she was just fine. Minutes later, she was missing and I found her sitting in her room, with tears in her eyes. She had indeed burnt her hand.

Could that have been a hunch that told the future, or just another coincidence? I had dismissed it back then as a case of me being more sensible than my cousin but now it seemed like it was kind of a sixth sense that was telling me what’s gonna happen. I discussed these incidents with a friend of mine and he too had some stories to tell me. So I started believing that the sixth sense or whatever that is, is a part of everyone whether or not they like it. It is a normal part of the human psyche and not abnormal or reserved for special or gifted persons.

[to be continued...]

This year so far, quite a few good movies have come out, which is quite refreshing. I was so bugged watching the same old mindless actions and movies heavily loaded with SFX just for the heck of it. Being an animation and SFX enthusiast, I shouldn’t be saying that, but then, I hate movies badly made or movies with bad SFX. And I never enjoy movies with flying cars and ships, tall ultra modern structures and high-tech robots as cab drivers and stuff – the stories set in 2500AD or whenever. I have never watched any of the Star Wars movies. Every time I say that, my friends look at me like am crazy. A movie buff, a guy who loves animations and SFX, and never seen the ultimate out of this world movie, Star Wars?

Nope. I haven’t. And that’s kind of the reason why I haven’t seen it too. Out of this world. Somehow, I don’t enjoy them. Star Wars, Fifth Element, Total Recall, Minority Report and many more I guess. The few I liked are The Matrix (especially the first part) and Terminator (maybe coz it’s set in our times, though the machines come from 2035) trilogy. A movie like Mask of Zorro, which hardly had any CG works and one like Pirates of the Caribbean, which used CG skills so seamlessly that the movie still had the classic feel to it, is always so welcome in my heart.

Ok, let me get to the movies I saw recently.

First it’s Rang De Basanti, which is targeted at the young generation. It’s a film about awakening; about standing up for ones beliefs.

A young English filmmaker comes to India to make a film on the Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their contemporaries and their fight for freedom from the British rule. But due to lack of funds, she decides to recruit students from Delhi University to act in her documentary. She thus meets and befriends a group of youngsters. These youngsters could be anyone of us today and their lives mirror the kind of lives the youth of today lead – namely a self centered and materialistic existence where ideas like patriotism and making a change are strictly the stuff history books are made of. As the story moves on, it turns out that more than just telling the world about the efforts of the young revolutionaries and the enormity of their contribution to the freedom movement in India, Sue’s documentary makes these youngsters stop and stare at themselves for being the actual descendants of these great men and never recognizing and celebrating their courage and spirit. The tag line, A Generation Awakens is so aptly chosen for this movie. It’s a highly inspiring and very thought provoking movie. But I certainly wouldn’t agree that it’s the best. A lot of flaws did exist. Many veteran actors were cast just for namesake and that was a total waste of talent. But it was a wholesome entertainer, with some great music (the song Roo-ba-roo is beautiful) and good performances by the young actors.

Aamir Khan who almost passes well as a college student even in his 40s yet again after DCH, plays DJ who passed out five years back but still wants to be a part of the University because he doesn’t think there’s much out there in the real world to look forward to; Siddharth of Boys fame plays Karan, a cold and silent character, the son of an industrialist played by Anupam Kher; Kunal Kapoor, quite a looker, plays Aslam, a middle class Muslim boy who is a poet, philosopher and guide to his friends; Sharman Joshi plays Sukhi, the group’s baby, innocent, vulnerable and with a weakness for only one thing – girls; Atul Kulkarni is Laxman Pandey, the fundamentalist in the group, and the only one who still believes that politics can make the world a better place and Soha Ali Khan plays Sonia – the sole girl in the group, engaged to Ajay, the dashing airforce pilot, payed by Madhavan. Overall, a good movie. Enjoyable. And it carries a message, which is just great considering the amount of junk our movie industry churns out every year.

Another movie I enjoyed is the John Abraham – Nana Patekar starrer Taxi 9211, the story line for which is “inspired” by the Samuel L Jackson – Ben Affleck thriller Changing Lanes (2002). It’s said that director Luthria has only taken inspiration from the film and not copied it blatantly. I did find some scenes to be carbon copies however. Anyways, the casting is great and direction and the performance by the actors are excellent. This is the first movie I liked John Abraham’s acting in. And Nana Patekar, even though in his usual short tempered role, was great ‘coz in this he wasn’t the person who gives long speeches and hard hitting dialogues. He was just a short tempered taxi driver who lies to his wife that he’s an insurance agent. John is an irresponsible rich business man. An accident involving the two builds the whole story. And the two stubborn men try destroying each other’s lives but end up destroying their own. Well, almost. It’s been done pretty well, and the chemistry between the two actors did the movie real good. And this movie has a pretty good message too. I enjoyed it more than Rang De Basanti, to be frank.

A movie that’s making news now is Being Cyrus, an English movie from India. I watched it on video, but the copy was too bad to even understand the dialogues well, let alone enjoy it. But from the li’l I did see and understand, I could tell you it’s a very well made movie with a dark storyline and great performances by the entire cast. Just a handful of them but doing a great job. It’s more like watching a play in a theatre.

The only English movie I watched recently and liked is, Crash. I wanted to watch Brokeback Mountain, but I missed it at the cinema. Will watch it for sure on DVD even though I hate gays ;o) Anyways, Crash is movie about rasicm in all its complexities. Here’s the synopsis of the movie.

A Brentwood housewife and her DA husband. A Persian store owner. Two police detectives who are also lovers. A black television director and his wife. A Mexican locksmith. Two car-jackers. A rookie cop. A middle-aged Korean couple…

They all live in Los Angeles. And in the next 36 hours, they will all collide…

I won’t try to explain the storyline or what exactly it is about, ‘coz I think it’s a movie you gotta watch and feel it. It’s a film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices.

A few lines from the movie that I really loved :
“Live your life at the point of impact.”
“Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other.”
“You think you know who you are. You have no idea.”

A movie well done. Do watch it.